I am fifty-five today.

I feel a strong need to write something here to keep up with tradition, but I’m actually writing this weeks before my actual birthday, because my time management is so horrible, I will otherwise forget to do this and suddenly remember in mid-July. Also, I’ll be in Mexico on the actual day of my birthday, so I should figure this post out now.

55 is the 11th number in the Fibonacci sequence. The previous number was 34, and the year 2005 seems like three lifetimes ago. The next one is 89 and I honestly don’t expect to make it that far. 89 is also the year I graduated high school, so if there’s some miracle in stem cell therapy that keeps me going, expect an oddly nostalgic post 34 years from now.

55 is a nice round number that’s probably the end of middle age and the beginning of the senior years, which really doesn’t sound or feel right. I think about this far too much, the need to divide my life into three clean acts, and that act 3 is probably starting now, if it hasn’t already. I’ve read too many self-help books about midlife crisis and finding your purpose at the end of your life, and the only consensus that I’ve found is “do what makes you happy” or some similar advice I can’t entirely follow.

The IRS has something called the Rule of 55, which I’m now eligible for, I guess. After you turn 55, you can withdraw from the 401K at your current employer without penalty if you leave your job. I don’t plan on retiring this year, but it’s nice to know I won’t take a 10% hit immediately if I had to use this money to survive. The “when do I retire?” question seems to come up more now, and this nice round number presses the issue a bit more. Other magic numbers on the calendar include 59 1/2 (when I can withdraw from any retirement account without penalty), 62 (Social Security early retirement age), and 65 (Medicare eligibility.) I fully expect both Social Security and Medicare to be gone in the next three years, so remove those from the equation. (Actually, I expect it to be fully functional for everyone born before January 20, 1971, and that’s when the retirement age will be changed to 90 or something.)

55 is into this weird bubble with regard to health and death. When I was 34 or whatever and a classmate died, it was either a rare cancer or a spectacular car crash. I think after your young and stupid years are over, you enter a few decades where you’re probably not going to suddenly die, provided you wore a seat belt and didn’t sniff any questionable white powders. Now I’m firmly in the era of people just dying. I wouldn’t say “old age” but now people my age die, and there’s a lot less “too soon” about it.

So lots of famous people lived to the ripe old age of 55 and then didn’t. And some of them aren’t health things: Will Rogers had a plane crash at 55; Kate Spade killed herself at 55. So did Del Shannon. Johnny Ramone had cancer; so did Robert Urich. Woody Guthrie had Huntington’s. Paul Lynde had a heart attack. I think if I was in college and you asked me about Friedrich Nietzsche’s death, my answer would be, “Yeah, he was old.” Well, now I’m the same age as him.

Writing this entry 20 days after writing my end-of-year summary always sort of sabotages things here. I just about all of the quantifiable things of the last year: how much I wrote, walked, published, ate, flew, whatever. I guess I’m supposed to write about what I feel here, in some philosophical sense? All I feel is that I should keep writing. And I am.

My house is currently all half-dismantled because we’re getting it painted next week (or this week, I guess), and all of my paper journals are buried behind six metric tons of books in crates right now, which is great because I won’t go back and read what I wrote on my birthday 22 years ago or whatever (and also have a severe dust mite reaction that will require an Epi-Pen and a Benadryl sandwich). I have many birthday entries here, and I just started reading them, but I need to stop and actually write. So I’ll stop here and do that.

I am fifty-four today.

It’s funny, but I am writing this in the Helsinki airport in Finland, the day before my birthday. I’m just passing through, but my third flight of three got cancelled and they threw me on a later one. This resulted in me spending about eight hours in this relatively tiny airport. And what’s funny is that the view outside probably looks a lot like the view in North Dakota where I was born. It’s not as cold; maybe hovering around zero celsius. But the sun set at like 3:40 PM and there’s this eternal gray, with mounds of plowed white tucked away in the corners. It’s a very monochromatic landscape, and looks like the same sort of man-made island of aviation technology plopped in a frigid corner of nowhere, just like Grand Forks AFB. Only difference here is that the tundra’s hosting a bunch of Finnair Airbus planes, and not B-52 nuclear bombers.

54 is a nice, solid, even number. The only mathematical oddity I can think of is that it’s three times eighteen. I very clearly remember when I turned 18; I probably have written about it too many times here. It really throws me to think I’m three times as old as that. When I was 18, I was three times older than I was six. I don’t remember my sixth birthday, but I do remember being that age, and it was lifetimes before I was 18. I sometimes feel like I was an adult when I was 18 and it wasn’t that long ago. But so much has happened in the last 36 years, that obviously isn’t true.

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Many people share my birthday, but the one I loved the most was David Lynch. He was exactly 25 years older than me. And I say “was” because he’s now gone. I don’t get that bent up about celebrity deaths, but this is one that really hit me. I’d always hoped to meet him someday to tell him about how we were in the same secret society. I admit I got into Lynch’s work late, and seeing Eraserhead in college was one of the first stars that moved into alignment for me to start writing Rumored to Exist in 1995. And Twin Peaks was required viewing in college, but the lushness of that world didn’t fully impact me until I moved to Washington and saw Mount Si in the fog and the endless evergreens and felt like I’d crossed over into the scene in his mind. Huge loss, but it’s also a weird one in that I feel like he’ll never be gone and he’s off in the black lodge and will mysteriously show up in 25 years.

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There is so much loss and sadness going on. Maybe it is always going on and it’s confirmation bias or whatever. But I was in JFK airport last night, scrolling through the end of TikTok, and it was so profoundly sad. I never created there, but had a burner account I used to scroll videos after work to calm down and reset my brain. And there were so many people who found community there, found support or solace, and it all completely ended over what is basically a stupid political stunt. Maybe it will come back, but it has me thinking a lot about community and friendship and support, and in many ways I am completely isolated and need to work on this. But how?

And the thought on everyone’s mind is how the regime change happening today will cause more great loss. I don’t write about politics, but I don’t think it’s going to go well. There is a reason I left the country yesterday, and it isn’t because I support any part of this. I can’t change minds and I can’t change policy. All I can do is keep working, keep supporting the people who work for me, and hope the economy isn’t completely destroyed by the time I need to stop.

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I think last year, I talked about how I was just spinning my wheels in year 52 and needed to spend year 53 writing. Good news is that I did this. I published one book and got two others closer to done. All I want to do in my 54th year is keep doing this, so I will.

I am fifty-three today.

53 is a weird number. It’s a prime number, so I can’t play the usual games like “I’m exactly twice as old as when I ____”. It’s not a nice round number age-wise, but now I’m old enough and this blog is old enough that I’m twice as old as when I wrote this entry, which is a bit weird to think about. But other than that, there’s no numerical relevance to 53. My locker in junior high was 153. My combination was 2-31-16. (Why do I remember this?)

Grasping at straws, this birthday is 35 years since I turned 18, I guess. It’s 40 years since my parents divorced, which means it’s 40 years since I got my first computer, the Mattel Aquarius. But as I start writing this, I can’t think of any other big even-numbered anniversaries or dates or anything else. It’s another year.

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I’m loath to write about this, but I guess in the interest of full transparency, I should. That little cold I got when I came back from Wisconsin? Turns out it was COVID-19. I’ve spent the last three weeks out of commission dealing with that. And although it was not as bad as it could have been, it was as bad as most people say it is.

It’s stupid to have an illness that is so politically divisive. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, and end up in an argument about how it did or did not exist. For the most part, everyone was nice about it, and the only unsolicited medical advice I got was that I needed to take it easy and rest. And that was correct, because I was horribly tired, and sleeping twelve hours a day was not enough.

The worst part about COVID was that I had to spend about two weeks on an air mattress in my home office, staying isolated so S wouldn’t catch it. (She didn’t.) And sleeping on the floor of an 8x10 room for weeks is a good way to put the zap on yourself, especially when you’re already depressed about your station in life and what you did over the last year, and are looking up at another big milestone.

So that whole thing was no bueno. And I am supposed to be in Las Vegas right now with the usual crew, but I had to cancel that. Physically, I’m 90% better. I’ve been testing negative for a few days now, and the symptoms are mostly gone. Mentally… what am I doing?

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When I wrote this post for my last birthday, I basically said I wanted year 52 to be better than year 51, that I wanted to write more, do more, be more. Was it? I don’t know. I traveled a lot. I did another master’s degree. I published two zines. But I didn’t write anywhere near as much as I wanted. I was recently looking at the draft of Atmospheres 2 and I put a bunch of notes in it on the morning of my birthday last year, a laundry list of things I wanted to do, a punch list of what I needed to finish. I did almost zero on that. And it wasn’t because some other big project got in the way. I “un-quit” writing, but I haven’t gotten back into practice yet.

Year 52 was spent spinning my wheels on a lot of stuff, thinking about what I need to do, what I need to start, what I need to finish. Need is a bit of a dirty word, though. When I say I need to write a big book and I don’t write a big book, it just makes me feel bad or guilty. I should want to write a big book, then either do it, or do the prerequisite work or exploration or research. Ultimately this is all noise, because the era of fame and fortune from a book is about to end. I shouldn’t want to write a book because I need to keep a roof over my head or become a household name. I should want to write a book because I want to write a book.

I was emailing with my friend Michael about this need to create the other day, and I remembered a story from my childhood. I was maybe ten years old, playing with Lego, like I did for months at a time. And I must have seen the M.C. Escher lithograph Relativity in an encyclopedia or something, the one with the orthagonal staircases going off in different directions and opposing gravity wells. And instead of assembling the stock fire station or moon base or whatever you do in the instructions that come with Lego kits, I started randomly building this structure with staircases going nowhere and little side pods of houses in the air and catwalks going across them and walls sticking up akimbo, leading to towers and ramparts and pieces of vehicles affixed to turrets or cupolas. It was this endless mess of structure going everywhere and nowhere, eventually taking over the entire kitchen table until I was required to remove it. But what I remember most was just the joy of growing the thing in every direction with no plan or idea or concept, spending hours just creating for the sake of creating, and it generated such a wild out-of-the-box product. I thought about this a lot when I wrote Rumored to Exist. And now, I feel like we have unlimited Legos and an unlimited kitchen table to build on, and it’s all a matter of snapping those first bricks onto a baseplate and going.

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So 52 was eh and 53 is no magical number. But I’m still here, and I’ve got a lot to do in the next year.

I am fifty-two today.

I’m trying to think of what the number 52 conjures in my head. A deck of cards, obviously. Games of “52 pickup” which we “played” with my little sister. The B-52 bomber, which my dad worked on when I was born on a desolate Air Force base in the middle of nowhere. The number of weeks in a year. The number of hostages Iran freed on my 10th birthday. Denver is at 5200 feet. (Well, 5280.) It is the fifth Bell Number and the third untouchable number. There are 52 white keys on a piano.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I like even-numbered ages. I liked 50, and did not like 51. 52 sits better with me, but it’s also solidly in my 50s. And 52 sounds way older than 50 for some reason. I do like the even number. And I dislike odd-numbered years. Unfortunately, there’s only 19 days where both my age and the year are even. Age is just a number and time is an abstract concept, but I do like a good even number for some reason.

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I am getting old. 52 is old. I mean, we all are getting old, but this year, I look in the mirror and… yeah. I’m no longer young. When I was in my 40s I could sort of pass for 30s, but now I’m definitely in my 50s. I had to get my driver’s license renewed, and I don’t recognize the guy looking back at me. I look seventy. Not having hair anymore really does it. Things are happening to the skin on my neck that no face cream will fix. The eyes are not the eyes of a thirty-something. I shouldn’t care about any of this. I do.

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I am going to Las Vegas for my birthday this year. I’m writing this before I leave, so it’s autoposting while I’m already there. This is the first big trip to Vegas in a while on the actual day of my birthday with Bill, Marc, and a few others. I think the last one like this was 2011. I don’t know what Las Vegas will be like post-pandemic (or during pandemic? I don’t know what their cases look like these days).

I’m staying at the Mirage this time, and maybe the last time, because it was bought by Hard Rock and it’s rumored that it will be completely gutted this year or next. I can’t remember if I’ve stayed at the Mirage before. I’ve been there a lot, and I know I stayed at Bellagio before. (2006?) It’s amazing that at one point, I knew enough about this to write a book, and now it’s a bit of a blur. And I generally don’t stay in hotels with casinos anymore. The last few times I was in town, I decided I needed a kitchen. So this time, I’m back to the regular grind of being on the strip.

A few plans this year: Penn and Teller, Bouchon. There will be steak. I’m not sure what else, but it will be good to get out of town for a few days and see friends.

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A lot of amazing people left in their fifty-second year. Zappa. Houdini. Christopher Reeve. Chris Cornell. Luke Perry. Bob Ross. Grace Kelly. I’ve now outlived Shakespeare, Napoleon, Proust, James Gandolfini, Roger Maris. I’ve outlasted Alois Alzheimer and don’t have his namesake disease (yet). I’ve lived longer than Walter Reed and haven’t stayed at his hospital or caught yellow fever (yet).

Whenever I make these lists, I’m grateful I’m not on them, but it also makes me think about how these people are old, and I don’t even feel like an adult half the time, let alone an old, fully-formed person. I have a healthy dose of imposter syndrome when I think about this, and it’s deeper than thinking I haven’t accomplished enough. It’s this uncanny feeling: I am not an adult, am I?

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Any time I make one of these posts, there’s always some forward-thinking statement about what I want to do in the next year of my life. I do a bit of that in my end-of-year summaries, and the two are almost back-to-back posts, so there’s a lot of redundancy there. (Also, I’ve already broken the no-Taco Bell goal.)

Year 51 was grim and not entirely happy. And I obviously want better than that in year 52. Otherwise the goals are the usual: write more, read more, do more, be more. So I will do that.

I am fifty-one today.

I’m not sure what to say about this oddball number. After 21, only the big round numbers matter. This is the first post-50 birthday, so I’m now into my quinquagenarian years. I can contribute an extra $6,500 to my 401K. Car insurance is easier to get. Life insurance isn’t. 50 was a giant wall in my mind, but I got to like the age. It’s easy to say “I’m fifty” than it is to say “I’m fifty-one.” I mean, I will probably be saying I’m fifty for the next six months, just like I’m writing 2021 on everything. (Cognitive function is another discussion.)

51 in binary is 110011, which looks neat. It’s a pentagonal number, a Motzkin number, a Perrin number, and a Størmer number, none of which mean anything to me. Other than itself and one, its only divisors are 3 and 17. I don’t believe in numerology, so I don’t know what to say about that. I’ve always favored even-numbered ages and disliked odd ones, for whatever reason. 32 was cool. 44 was cool. 37 seemed dumb. So did 47. So 51 is 51.

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The first thing about 51 that pops in my head is Area 51. This is now a touchy subject for me. First, I am completely done with conspiracy theories. The current events of the last five years have made it completely impossible to enjoy reading about UFOs or whatever else. Conspiracy theories have been completely weaponized, and everyone who uses them as currency is A Problem. I have to walk away from that stuff entirely. I’m also trying to reevaluate my relationship with military planes, which is the other big part of Area 51. I’ve had an obsession with them ever since I started putting together plastic models as a kid. But there’s also a plague within the community that makes it difficult to deal with. I like airplanes and drones and technology and stuff, and I can easily fall down a k-hole on stealth bombers or whatever. But the rah-rah stuff is too much for me now. I hate to get political about it, and I don’t know what should replace it, but that’s how I feel.

There was a baseball team called the Las Vegas 51s, but they changed their name to the Aviators when they moved to a new park. I also have zero interest in baseball now. The Rockies’ inept ownership finally broke me, and I could not convert to another new team. The shortened season, new dumb rule changes, and lockout also tarnished things for me. And see also the fan community and politics situation I described above. Without going into it, with the social justice issues of the last few years and the general alignment of the fan base of the sport, I’m not entirely in agreement with things. I still peek in at what’s going on, and if the Oakland A’s manage to build a new stadium near my house (they won’t; they’re moving to Vegas), maybe I’d go to some games. But that’s another thing I’m moving past.

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All the usual post-50 thoughts are still in full effect. I need to save as much as possible. I need to pay off this house. I need to look after my health. I’ve lost a ton of weight this year, and I need to keep that off. I also need to think about my brain and what else I want to do. I’ve been taking photography classes. Taking a ton of pictures. This would be a great time to do more travel, except it totally isn’t. So I need to work on all of that.

Most googling on the age of 51 is stuff about how that is the average age of menopause in American woman. No problems there. I am losing the war of male-pattern baldness, but haven’t fully committed to buzzing everything away. I’m not running out to get hair plugs either. I guess a side benefit of not leaving the house for two years is I haven’t had to make a decision on that one.

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I’ve now survived longer than many notable people: Rod Serling, Raymond Carver, Steve McQueen, Michael Jackson, Bernie Mac, Dee Dee Ramone. I guess the very good news is I didn’t have a gripper up until now. But the other edge of that blade is I haven’t exactly reinvented the American short story or the anthology television series in my years on this planet. I sometimes think too much about what I have and haven’t done, and I can’t waste any time on that today.

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The only weird thing that 51 made pop into my head is that I’m exactly three times older than I was when I was 17, and that nostalgia problem I described last year makes me think too much about when I was a teenager, in my junior year of high school, in 1988. That’s another rabbit hole I want to avoid, but it’s on my mind.

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I have not updated in forever, and there’s lots to update about, but I should do that outside the context of this little birthday post, which I’m mostly doing it so I can find it later with the rest of my other birthday updates.

Anyway, day off. Time to go walk a mall, maybe take some pictures.